30 reasons to stay || piszczek

reason twenty-four

30 June 2017.

She doesn't know his name. She has never known his name.

He is embedded in her mind as father—the man who failed to have enough dignity to be called papa. Who hit her for the littlest of wrongdoings and left right after and coming back after months like a new man, but he was just the same. He is the man who never stayed enough to bond with his child up to the point where he left without a word.

She wondered if he was aware of her mother's situation before she died, if he knew of it and didn't bother to fucking help at all left a five year old to grow in an environment that would leave her with everlasting trauma. Such a fucking asshole. He's such a fucking cunt, a dick, a coward for leaving me and making me believe that he loved me.

It disgusted her.

It made Rosie feel sick to call such a man father when he didn't feel like one for the five years he was there. But what else was he to call him?

She found out his name was Dominik Matulić, but she has yet to know his entire story.

Over the phone last night, Lukasz's phone put on speaker, Rosie heard his voice for the first time in twenty-three years and Lord, she was shaking. She didn't speak to him, no, it was Lukasz doing most of the talking and arrangements for their meeting today in the afternoon.

Dominik urges that it be at the couple's home, for privacy reasons, but Rosie declined. If he wanted to talk to her, then it has to be outside in public. And Lukasz has to be there.

He wants to be there.

He wants to know the man that caused his girlfriend such a pain in both the mind and the heart, why and how he could have left the family even if it wasn't his business to begin with. This man ruined Rosie's childhood and development, and he wanted to know the backstory of it.

Lukasz was furious taking the call last night, fuck, you can even hear it in his voice.

Because Dominik Matulić is a fucking coward for being the parent who left.

The Pole remembers the nights of Rosie waking up, not from nightmares of her mother, but of her father. Of him hitting her constantly but coming back with a sincere smile and acting like he cared for her. Lukasz's hand have held Rosie in her darkest moment as she cried, he sees the scars inside her, but they're nothing but battle wounds.

He doesn't know a lot of her father, and neither does her, but he's always had the feeling that he was a young parent as well. With Vjekoslava being eighteen at the time of Rosie's birth, he must have been maybe around the same age. If not, a couple years older.

And then her father was abusive, physically but never emotionally. Rosie found it strange and deceptive because he's be all kind and fatherly to her one minute and the next, he's hitting her.

I guess who can say that she was never hurt by his words, but only afraid of him.

And when they arrived to the small, secluded café they were to meet Dominik at, she swore all the memories came rushing back to her head the moment she saw him.

"Ružica." His thick accent creeps up her spine and through her body because even his voice is the same.

He's aged, dark hair with specks of grey showing and wrinkles upon his olive skin—he's her father. You can see it.